1. Customer Success Story
Pinsent Masons Finance Team Transforms from
Scorekeepers to Strategic Business Advisors
Global law firm integrates acquisitions, gains 360° view of
worldwide operations with Adaptive
“With the time savings, ease of analysis, and
the scale of consolidation achieved using
Adaptive, we’ve gone from scorekeepers to
strategic business advisors.”
– Andrew Brett, Financial Accounting Manager
Following a merger that increased Pinsent Mason’s size by one third, the now larger law
firm had a number of different financial systems—including two general ledger and practice
management systems—that needed to be consolidated within months to see its finances
as a whole. The global firm is made up of many different practice groups, offices, countries
and currencies, and began seeking a solution that would accomplish the following:
• Drill down capability into the numbers for each practice group, office, and division
• Collaboration on financial data in local languages and currencies
• Understanding the overall top line and multi-dimensional view of the business
Failing to have this in place quickly could have resulted in potential regulatory
non-compliance, lost revenues, and losing many of the benefits of the merger.
As Andrew Brett, Financial Accounting Manager for Pinsent Masons revealed, “By working
with Adaptive Insights’ UK partner, Clear Plan, and seeing how Adaptive Planning could
perform for our law firm, we were completely confident that the software would work for
us—and it did!”
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Pinsent Masons
Law Industry
UK
Pinsent Masons is a UK
headquartered law firm with
global operations. It has
annual revenue in excess of
£320 million and more
than 2,500 employees
worldwide. Its clients include
some of the most significant
players in the global energy,
infrastructure, financial services
and advanced manufacturing
and technology sectors.

2. Corporate Headquarters
3350 W. Bayshore Road, Suite 200
Palo Alto, CA 94303
T: +1 800 303 6346
F: +1 650 528 7501
UK / Ireland Headquarters
88 Wood Street London,
EC2V 7RS, UK
T: +44 0 208 528 1767
Australia Headquarters
Level 1, 7 Clunies Ross Court
Eight Mile Plains, QLD 4113, Australia
T: +61 7 3118 5013
F: +61 7 3041 6020
adaptiveinsights.com
adaptiveinsights.co.uk
info@adaptiveinsights.com
sales@adaptiveinsights.com
press@adaptiveinsights.com
support@adaptiveinsights.com
Customer Success Story
Understanding the business as a total
sum of its parts
Prior to Adaptive Planning, 90 percent of the finance team’s time was consumed with
finding numbers for the monthly close. This often took up to 15 days before they were
happy with the final data. “Now, within a day we can see the numbers, and within two
or three we can run reports and start analysis without errors or discrepancies,” said Brett.
What’s more, with previous systems it was difficult to incorporate data that was in different
databases or different geographies which compromised the accuracy of the data. Pinsent
Masons also was able to identify inaccuracies in its general ledger postings that were
invisible prior to Adaptive. “With Adaptive, all the data across separate accounting systems
and geographies is integrated seamlessly,” added Brett.
The finance team becomes more than
the scorekeeper
The increased productivity now enables Brett and his team to focus on new initiatives in
cash flow and balance sheet forecasting to guide longer term investments in IT, real estate,
and personnel, projects they simply didn’t have the time to accomplish before. “Now, we
can advise on investment decisions, forecast and, indeed, reforecast if need be, providing
valuable insights that can help grow the business, rather than simply reflect on it,” said Brett.
“Partners and the Executive Board increasingly want information more quickly and more
accurate, particularly as we plan to expand into other territories. With Adaptive, this is what
we can now deliver.”
“With Adaptive Planning,
our time to month-end
close has more than halved
and we’re miles ahead
in terms of the quality of
information at our fingertips,
and its accuracy. For
anyone thinking about
using Adaptive Planning,
my advice would be to
take the leap!”
— Andrew Brett,
Financial Accounting Manager